The Lies They Tell

Danielle Braithwaite-Shirley (hereafter DBS) first came to my attention because Travis Alabanza (where art thou, my love?) has spoken approvingly many times, then the opportunity to attend this ‘participatory performance’ came up. Like Travis, DBS is a well spoken, middle class, black- & trans-identified male, who makes art focussed on ‘archiving the black trans experience’ (groan) and hailed as a genius by some (okay, possibly just Travis). On the artist’s website there’s a chance to play the computer games that have bought the gaming nerd so much kudos. I have to say, they’re rather intriguing, often terminating abruptly in the way trains of thought do but perhaps also thought-terminating? Anyway, very dream-like and other worldly. They definitely require patience as they are slow paced. However, such praise does come with a qualification: it’s pure propaganda.

The first fatal mistake was to have the character deride the format of reality TV shows. There were many such incongruent moments, so it’s not like we could believe for a moment that Ella was vulnerable enough to succumb to the whims of exploitative TV execs and suitably enough we learnt nothing about the recruitment process or the story leading up to such a doomed decision. So, no inciting moment then. The end plot twist revealed that she wasn’t really conducting an exit interview with Big Brother, but voicing her own thoughts to us, which could have been funny, if it hadn’t been quite so chronic.